"I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life"
About this Quote
Creation here isn’t a hobby or a mystical lightning bolt; it’s Miles Davis describing a daily posture of survival. “My future starts when I wake up every morning” reads like a refusal to let legacy do the living for him. Coming from a musician who kept detonating his own past successes - cool jazz, modal, electric, the late-period abrasions - the line is both simple and quietly combative: yesterday’s masterpiece is a trap, and the only way out is to make something new before the world (or your own reputation) makes you repeat yourself.
The subtext is discipline disguised as spontaneity. Davis is mythologized as the ultimate improviser, but he’s pointing to routine: waking up, choosing, building. “Every day I find something creative to do with my life” broadens creativity beyond the bandstand into an identity and a method. It also hints at restlessness and control. For Davis, creativity wasn’t just expression; it was steering the weather. If you’re always creating, you’re never merely reacting.
Context sharpens the intent. Davis’s career was a long argument with complacency - his own and the culture’s. Jazz, especially in the mid-century and after, became a museum faster than its practitioners wanted to admit. His insistence that the future begins each morning is a push against nostalgia as an industry. It’s a mantra for anyone stuck under the weight of what they’ve already done: don’t protect the brand, protect the motion.
The subtext is discipline disguised as spontaneity. Davis is mythologized as the ultimate improviser, but he’s pointing to routine: waking up, choosing, building. “Every day I find something creative to do with my life” broadens creativity beyond the bandstand into an identity and a method. It also hints at restlessness and control. For Davis, creativity wasn’t just expression; it was steering the weather. If you’re always creating, you’re never merely reacting.
Context sharpens the intent. Davis’s career was a long argument with complacency - his own and the culture’s. Jazz, especially in the mid-century and after, became a museum faster than its practitioners wanted to admit. His insistence that the future begins each morning is a push against nostalgia as an industry. It’s a mantra for anyone stuck under the weight of what they’ve already done: don’t protect the brand, protect the motion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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